Disney Wants Your Stuff. (No, Iâm serious, they literally say you own the copyright to your fanwork until they say that THEY own it, i.e. Welcome to the new Disney TOS, Baby.
First up, the link, so chill already: https://disneytermsofuse.com/Â Your relevant and terrifying passage(s) are the entirety of Section 7. Go read it. Iâll wait.
Now. First thing to understand is that the legal language within the new TOS *implies* that Disney is only referring to people who use its services, people who clicked and agreed to this new TOS. But itâs implication only. Thatâs not what this TOS actually says.
This TOS spends a lot of time defining fanworks, or as they call it, User Generated Content.
They want to make it clear that,
a) You totally have the right to make User Generated Content (UGC) all you want.
b) You can put that UGC anywhere you want, whether they own the site or someone else does. What matters is that youâve put that UGC in a publically accessible placeâŠlike, oh, AO3.
c) Disney spends a few breaths saying that the creator of the UGC owns the copyright to that UGCâŠexcept if you read those words carefully, theyâre not guaranteeing you anything, because THEY own the copyright.
d) Disney then says, since they own the copyright to your UGC, they can literally do anything they want with it. They can steal it, crib it, use the entire thing as their own, make money off of it, reprint it, ANYTHINGâand you do not get credit. You do not get paid. You do not get acknowledgement. You might get a DMCA telling you take down your UGC because it is now *their* content that theyâre selling and how dare you steal from them. (No, Iâm not kidding.)
e) Nobody seems to know a fucking thing about this.
f) The bullshit on Twitter over May the Fourth was just a smokescreen, sorry. https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/28/21238909/disney-star-wars-maythe4th-hashtag-copyright-contract-twitter
Disney doesnât want your Tweets. They just wanted to see who was paying attention, and how, and if they could get away with it. (Yes, they did go after someone who reposted Disneyâs own tweets. No more information on that yet.)
g) Yes, you should absolutely take this seriously. You should be terrified, because how many fan content creators have the bank to fight this if their âcopyrighted contentâ that Disney specifies is still *their* copyrighted content is stolen? OTW exists for this very reason, but this is fucking Disney. They. Own. Almost. Everything. In. The. Corporate. United. States. Entertainment. Industry.
h) No, your MCU, Star Wars, Pixar, Disney animated films, ANY such fanworks, are not safe. If Disney likes it, they will take it. If you say they canât, theyâll point to their new site-wide TOS and say that they can. Is that legal? Donât actually know, but think about whoâs in the White House right now. Think about who heâd support. Yes, the Library of Congress and the House of Reps are supposed to be in charge, but how long until we could push for them to deal with/fix this shit?
i) Yes, Disney is probably trying to steal content in order to survive the pandemic, seeing as their major sources of revenue (parks and movies) arenât happening right now.
j) Yes, I will be removing my Star Wars content. I didnât work on that fucking story for nearly 20 years just for some corporate shill to fucking steal it.
k) Someone who currently wishes to remain anonymous has pinged an OTW peep to see if theyâre aware.
l) If they werenât so specific to point out that they really do mean Any Public Place, I wouldnât be so concernedâŠbut it doesnât. This isnât just about their services. This is about the entire fucking internet.
Thatâs it. You guys now know everything I know, so no, I wouldnât be able to answer any of your questions. I suggest spreading the word, if only so someone else with more information can step up and reassure us that Disney canât do what they believe they can doâŠ
âŠbut itâs fucking DISNEY. They nearly destroyed Public Domain in the United States over fucking Mickey Mouse a hundred years ago. Do you really think theyâre going to say, âOh, sorry, our badâ about this?
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